Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Shaking my fist in the air at HGTV

Two of my favorite channels are the Food Network and HGTV. I love watching Giada DeLaurentis or Tyler Florence whip up good eats in the kitchen (2 of my all-time favorite recipes have come from them). And watching HGTV, well, that has always been a source of inspiration and excitement as I tuck mental notes away for my future dream home.

After purchasing our new house here, I was abuzz with anticipation at being able to bring some of these dreams to life. There are no appliances in our kitchen, just open spaces waiting for me to fill them with gorgeous stainless steel dream machines.

But my enthusiasm has begun to wane, and reality has started to sink in. Buying all new appliances is a major pain in the rear. On HGTV, they send you away for a commercial break and you arrive back home to see your incredible new space, sparkling and adorned with non-childproof accessories. In real life, there are 82 makes and models of each appliance, some of which will fit into your allotted space. There are ratings and reviews, and sales and payment plans. There are cabinet-depth refrigerators and standard ones that will stick out 8-12 inches from the counters. I have come to dread opening the refrigerator page on Best Buy's website. Damn you, HGTV, for making it all look so easy.

I think we I have decided on a dishwasher, and we have narrowed down the refrigerator category to a manageable 3-4 models. Our biggest problem revolves around the double oven/microwave/hood issue. The previous owners did not have a double oven; they had a single oven/microwave combo (sort of odd, if you ask me). I am not a big fan of this, and would like some double ovens. I know I will use them (at the same time) approximately 3 times a year, but! I still want them. This leaves us with the hood/microwave question. I love the look of a nice stainless steel hood over a pretty cooktop, but then where do you put the microwave? It would be odd to put it on the counter in such an otherwise nice-looking kitchen. I think this means we need to get a microwave/hood standard combo. Unless you can help me come up with another idea?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a stainless micro-hood combo in my condo. It doesn't look as good as a separate hood. but, it looks pretty good, works great, the microwave is big, and WHERE would I put a microwave if I didn't have this??? Definitely wouldn't want separate micro and hood in this amount of space. I think it's an excellent option for space saving. Big microwave, works great.
Niki

joanna said...

We have a double oven (I've used both more than 3 times already and I don't really like cooking) and the microwave above it. The vent shoots back into the house about eye level for Oliver. We would rather it vented outside, but that would involve a lot of money and installing some kind of cabinetry to hide the pipe by the way I understand it.

Katie said...

I can't STAND Giada!!! She has these little short arms and this weird voice. I think she is part T-Rex. Was that bitchy? Sorry. But her voice! It makes me CRINGE!

I have no advice whatsoever on appliances. I've never bought any of them. All I know is that I want one of those double drawer dishwashers (we had one in a place we stayed in New Zealand and I LOVED it. You could just run the top shelf/drawer alone if you wanted!)...

...and I want a fridge that has the freezer drawer down below and two big doors for the refrigerator up top! And I want two ovens and a cool hood and a hidden microwave too. It doesn't sound like too much to ask, does it!??

Anonymous said...

Important Note: Do not let Children put magnets on Stainless Steel Appliances. They will scratch!!

Just hoping to keep yours scratch-free since I learned the hard way.

Steph

Anonymous said...

True, true, true, stainless steel is scratchy and finger printy. And, you can't just wipe it down with a sponge, it streaks. You need special stainless steel cleaner - I imagine it would be a pain to keep clean with little fingers around. It's fine with just me, but a couple of toddlers... There's another finish that looks like stainless but resists finger prints (and maybe scratches) better. I forget what it's called. You might look into that.
Love my stainless kitchen, but it's just me and the cats getting it dirty... And, the cats, well they don't mess up the kitchen much.
LOVE french door refrigerators. Don't forget to check craiglist. It's CRAZY the brand new and almost brand new appliances people put up there. Folks buy homes and immediately remodel the brand new kitchen. (Or, if you want white appliances, a lot of people move into new places with white appliances, and immediately pull them out and upgrade to stainless. They sell the brand new white stuff on craiglist. GREAT DEALS - some black, too).
Niki

Andrea and Ben said...

Man, I am jealous and not at the same time. The time and money it takes to make the kitchen the way you want it is a pain. If I had it my way in the future, we would not have a microwave. I don't use it very often though I am sure that will change once we have kids.
If you get a double oven I will cry out of envy.

Jen said...

Joanna - so you have your microwave ABOVE your double oven? Can you reach it? Do you have any drawers below your ovens, or does the bottom one pretty much sit at floor-level?

Katie - I know. I totally want all that cool brand new stuff. Love the idea of the double-drawer dishwasher. But the one we are getting allows you to only wash the top rack if you want (even though it's one drawer).

Steph - good to know!

Niki - I think I am going to have to keep the children out of the kitchen completely. Haha. I think the other option is the 'SS look', which looks sort of...cheap and not SS, if you ask me. I am looking on craigslist, but I haven't found anything great yet. Hopefully I can buy a second fridge off there, though.

Andrea - I am tempted to not get a microwave, too. I rarely use it (although if I didn't have one, I'm sure I would be sorry, as I bet I use it more than I think I do). I still do not know how you re-did your entire kitchen. Totally awesome. You and Ben are welcome to help us fix ours up anytime.

Anonymous said...

I LOVE, LOVE my double oven. I use it ALL the time!! It is also awesome only having to heat a small space when that's all I need and it heats up so fast! I'm so glad I got the one with the small space on top as I use it the most! I've never minded the look of the micro/hood combo and I'd hate to lose that much counter space so it was an easy choice for me. We have the fake SS on everything, but the fridge we already had, and with 4 kids, I love it. It looks nice enough and it easy to care for. With a family as big as ours, I'd never only run part of a dishwasher, and I love ours. It gets everything really clean and holds a lot and the upper rack can adjust down to hold longer stemmed wine glasses, etc. I hope you're as happy with your new appliances as I am with mine. I'd love to pick out a new fridge at this point, but can't afford it when the old one is working fine. For what it's worth, I'd go with the biggest fridge you can fit in the space with a growing family or at least the desire to grow. They never seem to hold enough!

Anonymous said...

PS I also have our micro combo over our double oven. The double ovens just don't have the bottom drawer and so the stovetop is at the same height as a normal oven/stovetop.

Elizabeth said...

We got a fake stainless steel so magnets would stick and fingerprints wouldn't show. But the leap frog magnet thing still scratched it. But my kids are not gently

Lysandra said...

I also hate Giada...just saying.